When an agribusiness facility producing genetically engineered food releases a deadly toxin into the environment, seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres races to deliver the cure before time runs out.From the author of the acclaimed American Booksellers Association’s Indies Introduce pick Salvage, which was called “Brilliant, feminist science fiction” by Stephanie Perkins, the internationally bestselling author of Anna and the French Kiss. This stand-alone action-adventure story is perfect for fans of Oryx and Crake and The House of the Scorpion.Seventeen-year-old Tempest Torres has lived on the AgraStar farm north of Atlanta, Georgia, since she was found outside its gates at the age of five. Now she’s part of the security force guarding the fence and watching for scavengers—people who would rather steal genetically engineered food from the Company than work for it. When a group of such rebels accidentally sets off an explosion in the research compound, it releases into the air a blight that kills every living thing in its path—including humans. With blight-resistant seeds in her pocket, Tempest teams up with a scavenger boy named Alder and runs for help. But when they finally arrive at AgraStar headquarters, they discover that there’s an even bigger plot behind the blight—and it’s up to them to stop it from happening again.Inspired by current environmental issues, specifically the genetic adjustment of seeds to resist blight and the risks of not allowing natural seed diversity, this is an action-adventure story that is Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake meets Nancy Farmer’s House of the Scorpion.

Now on to the interview!

Hey Alexandra! First I want to say welcome back to Two Chicks on Books!
It’s been a while since you’ve been here I’m so happy you could stop by for a
chat! BLIGHT sounds absolutely fantastic and I can’t wait for everyone to read
it!

For the readers:
can you give us a little info on BLIGHT and the characters?

Blight is a YA
eco-thriller about a world where giant agribusiness firms have taken over North
America. Tempest Torres works as a border guard for one of these companies,
AgraStar. A moment of mercy one night on patrol unleashes a chain reaction that
upends her whole world and sends her on the run, trying to beat a
rapidly-spreading genetically engineered blight to the company’s headquarters
in Atlanta.

Is this a
standalone or a series? And if it’s a standalone what are you working on now?

Blight is a standalone,
although I’d love to write a sequel or companion to it. I just turned in a
draft of my next novel, The Ember Days,
about witches in Jazz-Age Charleston. Fingers crossed my editor likes it!

Were any of the
characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?

Not directly. There are always pieces of me and other people I know in
my characters, but none of my characters were directly based on anyone. (Thank
goodness, because everyone in this book is someone who might be able to win a
firefight, but none of them would be very good company.) The closest thing to a
character being inspired by a real-life person is actually the setting. I grew
up in the piedmont of North Carolina, close to the South Carolina border, and a
lot of the landscape and plant life in Blight
is based on my experience rambling around outside as a kid. For example,
these vast areas overrun by kudzu were one of the defining topographical
features of my childhood. In fact, it’s still something I see walking around my
neighborhood, and it never ceases to spark my imagination.

Who was your
favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?

I really enjoyed writing some of the supporting characters, like Eli
and Juna, because they came to life so easily. The one I struggled with most
was Dr. Salcedo, who shows up in the second half of the book. It was a tough
balance to portray someone who has bought into some of the toxic beliefs of the
company so wholeheartedly, but not to make her a cardboard cutout villain. Like
many of the characters in the book, she’s an accomplice to what AgraStar does,
but also a victim of it. The real villain is the system everyone is trapped in,
not any one character.

What is your
favorite passage/scene in BLIGHT?

I really like the end of chapter two, where Tempest has just been part
of a raid on a family farm that left the father in the family injured. Tempest
is trying to turn his 12 year-old daughter, Juna, to AgraStar’s side and
persuade her to give them information. It’s not a happy scene, but it reveals a
lot about Tempest’s character and worldview, contrasted with Juna’s.

What kind of
research did you have to do for the story?

There were two main areas I needed to research - the science and ethics
behind agribusiness companies’ practices and the subject of cultural erasure.

The first area was fairly straightforward. I read books like Michael
Pollan’s The Botany of Desire,
consulted guidebooks and websites about invasive and native plants of the
Southeast, and attended a lecture about herbicide resistant weeds and
scientific innovations to combat them. This is actually a topic I’ve followed
since I was a teenager, when I heard rumors about “terminator seeds” being
developed - seeds that would produce one generation of corn, soybeans, or
whichever crop you chose, but wouldn’t produce viable seeds that you could
plant. After that single generation, they were a genetic dead end. (If you’re
getting worried, the technology for terminator seeds was developed, but they
were never put into production.)

My research into the second area came about because of a suggestion
from one of my sensitivity readers. I knew from the beginning that I wanted my
protagonist to be Latina, largely because I wanted to dispel a misconception
I’ve run into from people across the country and the world that there aren’t
any Latinx people in the Southeastern US. I’m not Latina, but I speak Spanish
and have volunteered as a translator with several nonprofits over the years.
When I would tell people about studying Spanish or my volunteer work, they
would look at me as if I had multiple heads and say, “I didn’t know there were
any Spanish-speaking people in North Carolina!”

The difficulty I ran into was that the culture of AgraStar in the book
is one of conformity, and Tempest has to buy into that mindset for the first
part of the book. How do you write a character from a particular cultural
background in a setting where corporate culture has deliberately choked out
everything else? My first sensitivity reader suggested approaching this
conundrum head-on by making cultural erasure a theme and point of discussion in
the book. After all, that very dynamic plays out in places like public schools,
where kids are discouraged from using any language other than English and made
to feel bad or awkward about celebrating their home culture’s traditions. I
read articles and listened to radio programs about the ways cultural erasure
manifests, discussed the topic with my second sensitivity reader, as well, and
looked back at historical examples of cultural erasure, like the removal of
Native children from their families and their placement in boarding schools in
order to make them “assimilate” into white culture. I hope I’ve done the topic
and the people who helped me research it justice with what I’ve written.

Who is your
ultimate book boyfriend?

It’s 100% Samwise Gamgee from Lord
of the Rings. Everyone craps on Sam, but he’s sweet and loyal, a good cook,
and a good gardener. He’s willing to literally walk into hell for the people he
loves. I also feel like he would be completely fine with spending Saturday
evening hanging out on the porch together and putting our feet up, which is
exactly my speed.

What inspired you
to write YA?

Books were my escape from a difficult home life as a teen. I write YA
because I want to pay forward the gift stories gave me during that time.

Lightening Round
Questions

What are you
reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?

I would do unspeakable things for an ARC of Dhonielle Clayton’s The Belles. February is too far away.

What Hogwarts
House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

I’ve always thought of myself as a Ravenclaw, but every single Sorting
Hat quiz I take puts me in Hufflepuff.

Twitter or
Facebook?

Twitter for writing-related stuff, Facebook for family and friends.

Favorite
Superhero?

Kamala Khan Ms. Marvel!

Favorite TV show?

I might be addicted to Scandal.
That show is bananas.

Sweet or Salty?

Sweet.

Any Phobias?

Snakes.

Song you can’t get
enough of right now?

“Hungry Ghost,” from Hurray for the Riff Raff’s album The Navigator.

2017 Movie you’re
most looking forward to?

Can I bump it to 2018 and say Black
Panther?

Thanks so much Alexandra for answering my questions! I can’t wait for
everyone to read BLIGHT! Big hugs!!!!

About Alexandra Duncan

Alexandra Duncan is a writer and librarian. Her first novel, Salvage,
was published April 1, 2014, by Greenwillow Books. Her short fiction has
appeared in several Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy anthologies and
The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She loves anything that gets her
hands dirty –
pie-baking, leatherworking, gardening, drawing, and rolling sushi. She lives
with her husband and two monstrous, furry cats in the mountains of Western North
Carolina.

Monday, July 24, 2017

Hey everyone! I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the blog tour for VENTURESS by Betsy Cornwell! I freaking love this series! I have an interview with Betsy to share with you today! And make sure to enter the giveaway below!

Young inventor Nicolette Lampton is living her own fairy tale happy ending. She's free of her horrible step-family, running a successful business, and is uninterested in marrying the handsome prince, Fin. Instead, she, Fin, and their friend Caro venture to the lush land of Faerie, where they seek to put an end to the bloody war their kingdom is waging. Mechanical armies and dark magic await them as they uncover devastating secrets about the past and fight for a real, lasting happily-ever-after for two troubled countries—and for themselves.

Now on to the interview!

Hey Betsy!! First I want to say welcome back to Two Chicks on Books I’m
glad you could stop by for a chat! VENTURESS was freaking AWESOME and I can’t
wait for everyone to read it!

For the readers:
can you tell us a little bit about the events leading up to VENTURESS and the
characters?

Okay first of all, thank you so much! It’s always a huge relief to hear
that someone enjoyed your new book. Since VENTURESS is a standalone novel - meaning
that you don’t have to read MECHANICA first to understand what’s happening - I
wanted to put a little bit of space in between the first book in the series and
this one.

VENTURESS kicks off a year after the end of MECHANICA, on the eve of
the annual ball and scientific exposition. The heroine, Nick, is a successful
inventor living happily with her clockwork horse and other steampunk animal
companions in the heart of the royal city. Her best friends/family unit, Caro
and Fin, are both wrapped up in their own challenges: a new romance for Caro,
and all sorts of political trouble for Fin. There’s a war between their country
and Faerie, and at the ball Nick receives a secret message begging for help
with the resistance.

So is this the end
for Nicolette and the crew? And if it is what are you working on now?

VENTURESS is the last book with these main characters, but I’m not
quite done with the world of Esting and Faerie: you might see Nick and her
friends popping up in the background of future books. I’ve just wrapped up
revisions on a girl-Robin-Hood retelling called THE FOREST QUEEN that’s set in
Esting 200 years before Nick was born. (You might notice little references to
the Forest Queen’s story in both MECHANICA and VENTURESS.)

Were any of the
characters in the book inspired by people from your real life?

I think there are little pieces of many people from my life in all of
my characters, but I don’t tend to base them directly on just one person. I
certainly met plenty of strong and smart young women inventors at Smith, where
I went to college: it was the first college in the country to offer an
all-women’s engineering program. I definitely think Nick would fit right in
with that group of Smithies.

Who was your
favorite character to write? What about your least favorite?

I always love writing Jules, Nick’s mechanical horse. It was probably
even more fun to write about him in VENTURESS than it was in MECHANICA, because
he spends all his time actual-horse-sized instead of tiny and therefore can be
more involved in all the action. I don’t think I had a least favorite character
to write - if I start to hate writing someone, I take that as a sign that they
shouldn’t be in the book at all.

What is your
favorite passage/scene in VENTURESS?

I have two! One is their underwater adventure in the bathysphere pods,
which you can actually preview on HMH Teen right now (link:

The other is a spoiler, sorry! I cried when I wrote it, so it might be
masochistic to

say it’s one of my favorites, but I’m proud of it.

What kind of
research did you have to do for the story?

One of the things that’s never sat easy with me about the steampunk
genre is how pro-colonial it can be. I wanted Esting to be a darker vision of
Victorian-era imperial England. Faerie is at least partly inspired by my
adopted home country of Ireland, which was of course one of England’s colonies.
I read about the colonial history of Ireland, as well as America and India, as
I was getting ready to write both MECHANICA and VENTURESS.

I do a lot of research into folklore and fairy tales in my work as the
story editor at PARABOLA, a magazine that examines religious and spiritual
traditions from around the world. As I was finishing VENTURESS, I came across a
popular Korean fairy tale called “The Blind Man’s Daughter,” and I was startled
by how perfectly it fit in with the themes I was exploring in my book. I have
one of my characters tell a Faerie interpretation of that story in VENTURESS.

Who is your
ultimate book boyfriend?

There are so many! Springing to mind right now is Char from ELLA
ENCHANTED - Gail Carson Levine really knows how to write swoony MG/YA heroes.

What inspired you
to write YA?

In college, I spent a semester interning at Teen Ink Magazine, and I was blown away by the quality of writing
we received (Teen Ink is one of the
biggest publishers of literary writing by teenagers). I kept thinking about all
the beautiful, inventive, and lyrical fairy tale retellings I’d loved to read
when I was younger. I realized that my wish to write literary fiction and my
love for fairy tales and YA didn’t have to be mutually exclusive! I drafted my
first novel, TIDES, during that semester.

Lightening Round
Questions

What are you
reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that you’re dying to read?

The Invention of
Angela Carter, a biography of my favorite writer.

What Hogwarts
House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

OK, I have to give a slightly extended answer for this one. When I was
eleven/actual first year age: Ravenclaw, all the way. But adult me would beg to
be a Hufflepuff.

Twitter or
Facebook?

Twitter.

Favorite
Superhero?

Gertrude Yorkes from Runaways.

Favorite TV show?

Buffy, always and
forever.

Sweet or Salty?

Salty!

Any Phobias?

Spiders, unfortunately. At least there are no deadly ones in Ireland.

Song you can’t get
enough of right now?

“The Maid Freed From The Gallows” sung by Tia Blake, which I listened
to incessantly over the last few months while I was working on THE FOREST
QUEEN.

2017 Movie you’re
most looking forward to?

Probably the Kingsman sequel
- the first one was so fun.

Thanks so much Betsy for answering my questions! I can’t wait for
everyone to read VENTURESS!

Thank you so much for having me!

About Betsy:

Hi! I'm Betsy Cornwell, an American writer and teacher living in a
stove-heated cottage in west Ireland, together with my horse trainer spouse, a
small herd of dairy goats, and an increasing number of other animals. I
write fiction and nonfiction and
blog about Irish folklore, travel, wild food, goats (of course!), homesteading,
and growing up.

When the
resurrectionists of Fissure's Whipp begin disappearing, eighteen-year-old Allie
knows someone is after their blood—or, more accurately, the genetic mutation that allows their blood
to heal wounds, save lives and even bring back the recently deceased.

Raised by her aunt after her parents' deaths, Allie knows staying vigilant
means staying alive. She's trained her whole life to protect herself by any
means necessary, from self defense classes to extensive weapons training in
knives. Now, she’s gone so far as to befriend a homeless boy named Ploy who
unknowingly trades a few nights a week on her couch in exchange for being a
human tripwire to those hunting her.

But as Allie and Ploy's feelings for each other grow, Allie realizes this time,
she'll need more than fighting skills and a sharp blade to beat a villain
literally out for blood.

Protecting a girl he shouldn’t love, from a threat he understands too well,
Ploy must face his past to save his future in Allie’s world—a world where bringing back the dead can cost you your
life.

Friday, July 21, 2017

Hey everyone! I am thrilled to be hosting a spot on the blog tour for BURIED HEART by Kate Elliott! I freaking love this series! And this ending was beautifully written and so bittersweet but I loved it!I have an interview with Kate to share with you today! And make sure to enter the giveaway below!

The explosive finale to World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott's captivating, New York Times bestselling young adult seriesIn this third book in the epic Court of Fives series, Jessamy is the crux of a revolution forged by the Commoner class hoping to overthrow their longtime Patron overlords. But enemies from foreign lands have attacked the kingdom, and Jes must find a way to unite the Commoners and Patrons to defend their home and all the people she loves. Will her status as a prominent champion athlete be enough to bring together those who have despised one another since long before her birth? Will she be able to keep her family out of the clutches of the evil Lord Gargaron? And will her relationship with Prince Kalliarkos remain strong when they find themselves on opposite sides of a war? Find all the answers in this beautifully written and exciting conclusion to World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott's debut New York Times bestselling young adult trilogy!

Hi Kate! First I want to say welcome
back to Two Chicks on Books! I love your COURT OF FIVES series and can’t wait
to read BURIED HEART!

I am so happy that you could stop by for
a visit!

Thank you for having me! I’m excited to
be back--I’ve now done a blog tour post for you for each of the three novels of
the trilogy! I really appreciate your support.

For the readers: can you give us a little recap about the series so
far and the characters? And what we can expect in BURIED HEART?

From Kirkus
Reviews, for Court of Fives: “After the death of
the highly placed aristocrat whose patronage ensured their safety, Jessamy’s
mixed-race family [Patron father, Commoner mother, and four sisters] is
targeted by political enemies; spared thanks to her skill at the game of Fives,
she must find a way to save them.”

Beyond this
paragraph lie spoilers, so read on at your own risk:

Jes has to make a difficult choice at
the end of Court of Fives that involves the young man (and adversary) she cares
for, Prince Kalliarkos.

In Poisoned Blade, Jes is running for
the Fives stable owned by Kalliarko’s scheming uncle, Gargaron. She has to keep
winning in order to save her family from discovery. Events propel her and her
younger sister Amaya into a cross country journey in the retinue of Lord
Gargaron; the two girls are searching for their missing sister Bettany, but
when they find her things don’t go as planned. Meanwhile, after generations of
oppression, the conquered people of Efea are threatening to rise up, and Jes’s
parents Esladas and Kiya (whom she both loves) are already on opposite sides.

In Buried Heart, foreign invaders
threaten an already unstable political situation in Efea. Jes will be caught
between both of her heritages--Patron and Commoner--while her greatest enemy, Gargaron,
will stop at nothing to defeat her.

So now that the series is over what are you working on now?

Later this year I have a novelette set
in the Spiritwalker universe (Cold Magic) coming out in THE BOOK OF SWORDS,
edited by Gardner Dozois. It’s called “I
Am a Handsome Man,” Said Apollo Crow. It will be published this October 2017, and I
should note that the anthology includes an original Game of Thrones short story
by George R. R. Martin as well as stories by fourteen other wonderful writers
like Ken Liu, Elizabeth Bear, Scott Lynch, and many more.

I am also working on the second volume
of the Black Wolves trilogy, an epic fantasy. I’m about a third done with that
at the moment. In addition I’ve been developing a new project on the space
opera sub genre that I’m quite excited about: fast paced, operatic, and bold.

Were any of the characters in the book inspired by people from your
real life?

No. I don’t normally base characters on
real people. But I do use characteristics of people I know when I’m trying to
make characters in my stories behave more realistically and dramatically.

Who was your favorite character to write? What about your least
favorite?

Jes has been my favorite character to
write. I have loved writing about a girl who is competitive and confident, and
yet who is also flawed and makes mistakes because she thinks she knows more
than she does and because she is determined to win.

I don’t really have a character who was
my least favorite to write. The characters I would like least in real life --
the villains -- are in a weird way pretty enjoyable to write because I can go
no holds barred with them.

What is your favorite passage/scene in BURIED HEART?

I honestly have a number of scenes in
Buried Heart that I really like. Because it’s the third book in the trilogy it
means that many large and small plot threads got to be exploded and/or
fulfilled in this volume. Some of them were painful to write and others were
really really satisfying to write. There is a passage that surprised me most
because it wasn’t planned in advance -- in other words, the idea for it popped
into my head as I was writing a scene and needed a certain . . . something to
make the scene more gripping and awful. It’s a scene with a barrel. You’ll know
it when you get there. (Jaime OMG I know the scene! I killed me)

Who is your ultimate book boyfriend?

Mr Darcy from Jane Austen’s novel Pride
and Prejudice. His emotional journey is appealing and also feels real: His
essential nature doesn’t change as much as he learns some humility and
endeavors to understand himself better in order to be worthy of Elizabeth. He
also does good deeds without asking for credit. And of course, he owns a
beautiful house.

What inspired you to write YA?

Wanting to place a girl front and center
in an epic fantasy tale of action, adventure, revolution, and family drama.
I’ve written girls and women as main characters in adult sff too, but YA as a
genre is so enthusiastic toward heroines and I wanted to write a story where
the MC’s centrality in the story would never be questioned or seen as odd.

Lightning Round Questions

What are you reading right now? Or what do you have on your TBR that
you’re dying to read?

DREAD NATION by Justina Ireland (April
2018). Post Civil War zombies. A
fantastic cover. I’m really enjoying this novel (and I don’t like zombies!),
and I hope you read it when it comes out.

2017 Movie you’re most looking forward to?

Thor: Ragnarok. I’m not sure how good
it’s going to be, but Cate Blanchett looks so great in the trailer. For 2018,
Black Panther.

What Hogwarts House would the Sorting Hat place you in?

Gryffinclaw

Twitter or Facebook?

Twitter

Favorite Superhero?

Magneto

Favorite TV show?

Classic: Firefly

Current: Harlots

Sweet or Salty?

Sweet

Any Phobias?

giant centipedes

Song you can’t get enough of right now?

This Is What You Came For (Calvin Harris
feat. Rihanna).

I think of this as Jes’s theme song for
BURIED HEART.

https://youtu.be/kOkQ4T5WO9E

Thanks so much Kate for answering my
questions! I can’t wait for everyone to read BURIED HEART!

About
Kate:

Kate Elliott has been writing stories since she was nine
years old, which has led her to believe that writing, like breathing, keeps her
alive. As a child in rural Oregon, she made up stories because she longed to
escape to a world of lurid adventure fiction. She now writes fantasy,
steampunk, science fiction, and YA, including recent works Black Wolves, Court
of Fives, and Cold Magic.

It should come as no surprise that she met her future husband
in a sword fight. When he gave up police work to study archaeology, they and
their three children fell into an entirely new set of adventures amid dusty
Mexican ruins and mouthwatering European pastry shops. Eventually her spouse’s
work forced them to move to Hawaii, where she took up outrigger canoe paddling.
With the three children out of the house, they now spoil the schnauzer.

I really liked this! I'm a huge fan of fairy tale retellings and most of the Peter Pan/Neverland ones I have read have been a huge disappointment. Not this one though! I thought Lisa wrote a beautiful story and I loved her take on Neverl...

Wow this book was really good! I'm going to forever call Revenge And The Wild "the kitchen sink book" because Michelle took everything she could think of including the kitchen sink and put it into this novel! This book was a historical, ...

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